I want to share a small piece of press that we got in Wired. The article talks about how software is being used to secretly manipulate people’s political views, which is immoral and wrong. The reason I wanted to share it though is because the authors use Voices as an example of political software that is ethical. Voices is an example “with much more transparency and respect for users”.

One of the ways we create a trustworthy experience like this is by making it very clear to the community that we do not share any of their personal information with third parties. Users also love that we don’t force them to create an account to use Voices. Voices will never require a Facebook login. Protecting people’s privacy is an essential part of encouraging political discourse.

We’re so thankful to hear that people are feeling the respect and honesty that we try to build into Voices. If you have any questions or feedback about how we're working to increase civic engagement, please do not hesitate to contact us. We love hearing from people who care about their communities.

A few weeks ago the one-thousandth person downloaded Voices. That’s exciting for a bunch of reasons. It means there’s a thousand people who have easy access to their elected officials. It means there’s a thousand people who can support the groups and causes they care about. It means there’s a thousand people who can change their community for the better. The real value of Voices comes from people taking action together. Individuals are more effective at influencing policy when they act together, in groups. And as the Voices community continues to grow, it will become more effective in influencing change. It’s always been our belief that people want to improve their communities, but that they don’t always have the time or info they need to do so. Growth like this is an exciting first step in validating that belief. If you’re not one of those thousand people, head over here to download the app and send us some feedback! We love hearing from people who want to improve their community.

This blog post is admittedly very late, but the Android version of Voices absolutely deserves a shout out. The dream is that one day all of our devices will have community participation tools installed on them, and that can’t happen if Voices isn’t available on Android. That’s possible now thanks to our two awesome developers, Lauren and Shafiq Quoraishee. They’ve both put in countless hours trying to ensure the user experience is as effective as possible in getting people to act. You can check out the Android version here, we’re always open to feedback!

On Thursday, June 30th, Voices co-hosted a meetup with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to teach people how to protect and fight for their digital rights.

This event was important to us because unlike other infosec meetups, this one took both a defensive and offensive position in the fight for digital rights. Attendees learned how to use encryption, as well as how to influence the policy process that threatens digital rights in the first place.

Digital security researcher Geminii Matt, taught PGP encryption and how to protect your data. He has worked for the NYTimes, CNN, Time inc, Interactive One and has a strong record of supporting activists around the world. PGP is the same technology used journalists and activists, including Edward Snowden.

After Matt’s talk I spoke for a few minutes on how the average person can influence the policy making process. The policy process is how elected officials write law. Understanding how to influence this process is equally as important as understanding encryption. The technology (encryption) and the policy (activism) are two sides of the same coin. We must be able to fight against terrible bills such as SOPA and make sure our elected officials know that we are paying attention to their actions.

Special thanks to the EFF, Geminii Matt, and everyone who attended that evening to help protect and fight for digital rights.

We're excited to share with everyone that Voices has won MobileWeek's 2016 startup challenge. This win is a light validation of the values that are at the core of our mission. Despite what the cynics will say, we believe that people do in fact care about their communities, they just do not have the time or information they need to act on their values. We know that our civic engagement tool provides the right user experience to give people a voice in their communities.

Thank you to all of the MobileWeek participants who voted for Voices, and thank you to everyone who contributed to creating Voices so far. We are excited to begin working with advocacy groups in NYC and changing the way people have a voice in their community.

Recently the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced the formation of the Electronic Frontier Alliance. According to their press release the purpose of this new organization will be:

Bringing together community and campus organizations across the U.S., the Alliance will serve as an increasingly vital hub for activism and organizing addressing a spectrum of civil liberties and digital rights issues.

Everyone at Voices greatly admires the EFF - who as a San Francisco based digital rights group - has long been on the front lines of battling abusive legal threats and government actions to infringe on online civil liberties.

The EFF may be best known for leading the battle against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) that would have a created a "blacklist" of censored websites. These bills were defeated by an enormous online campaign started by EFF and a handful of otherorganizations, which culminated in the Internet Blackout on the January 18, 2012.

The Alliance will bring together groups pursuing a range of strategies and tactics—from the open source software community, to student groups hosting teach-ins and documentary screenings. They will be united by five substantive principles:

Free expression: people should be able to speak their minds to whom ever will listen.

Security: technology should be trustworthy and answer to its users.

Privacy: technology should allow private and anonymous speech, and allow users to set their own parameters about what to share with whom.

Creativity: technology should promote progress by allowing people to build on the ideas, creations, and inventions of others.

Access to knowledge: curiosity should be rewarded, not stifled.

Voices believes these principles are extremely important, and encourages the EFF and the new member organizations of the Electronic Frontier Alliance to use Voices to help gather and amplify these five points to elected officials - that they are on notice about a growing number of people who care deeply about digital rights.

Hi, my name is John and I’m an iOS developer from NYC. Before I began programming I used to work in politics. Politics was a lot of fun, I got to meet Senators, judges, lobbyists, activists and a million other people who had an opinion about their community.

As I started talking to more and more people about the perspectives they had of their communities, I started to realize something. Almost everybody that I spoke with genuinely does care about their community and the world around them. The problem is that most people don’t have the time or information to actually convert their values into direct action. There are too many barriers in place to make it worthwhile for people to participate. Only 13% of Americans under the age of 30 voted in 2014, this participation problem needs to be addressed.

This is why I created Voices.

To put it simply, Voices is a community participation tool for people who care. It uses your GPS location to tell you who you the elected officials are in your community, and then makes it easy to call, tweet, or email them about what’s important to you. It will even remind you to vote.

History shows us that when it’s easier to vote, more people vote (no brainer right?). The goal of Voices is to reduce those barriers to community participation and enable people to organize collectively behind their values.